Portugal ready for ‘tough battle’ with Iran

Former player of team Denmark, Peter Schmeichel opined at the expense of the third round match of group b at the 2018 world Cup, which pitted Iran and Portugal.

He said the boots "celebrate the 85 global goals" he has scored during his career.

Iran has never been past the group stage at the World Cup, but a win over Portugal on Monday would vault the nation into its first knockout stage round.

Ronaldo carried Portugal through their first two group games, hitting a memorable hat-trick in a 3-3 draw with Spain before netting the victor in a gritty 1-0 victory over Morocco.

A new record was set on Tuesday [NZ time], when referee Enrique Caceres gave one to Portugal, then one to Iran during their 1-1 draw at Mordovia Arena in Russian Federation, the 19th and 20th penalties of the tournament.

Morocco's Noureddine Amrabat made clear his feelings at the end of Monday's game as he looked into a television camera and mouthed: "VAR, it's bulls**t".But while Spain's equaliser was correctly given, the decisions in Saransk were more controversial.

Firstly the VAR officials were wrong in referring it to the referee who inexplicably awarded a spot-kick.

In the first half, Portugal scored the first goal thanks to a stunning Ricardo Quaresma strike and later on Ronaldo missed a penalty. "The best players in the world face that when there isn't an opportunity to really make it happen", said Portugal boss Fernando Santos.

Ronaldo narrowly escaped a red card thanks to further VAR controversy, but the manager admitted that this was not something that he was anxious about during the match.

Nonetheless, the pundit says that Ronaldo, openly motivated by personal records, will be particularly upset at missing out on a chance to go level with Harry Kane, who has scored five goals at Russian Federation 2018 in just two games. So the question it is for me, as I said before, it is not about the refs, it's about the attitude and the bravery and the character.

That hardly sits well with FIFA's statement as they introduced the new system to the biggest tournament on Earth, saying: "Our goal is minimum interference for maximum benefit."Of course, that was a reference to the flow of the game itself rather than the potential impact decisions could have further down the line. I'd have to watch it again to talk about it, but I think the VAR did its job and that's what we have to accept".

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